Fortress Black
by wonderstance
Summary: Maybe it was the dark and broken thing he had going on. After all, Hiei's life was built on a castle of solitude and despair. She couldn't help it. In the end, she just wanted to catch him. Hiei, OC.
1. Chapter 1

note: I attempt some kind of humor. Forgive me.

* * *

_Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars._

* * *

_01._

_Suren_

* * *

It took a considerable amount of effort for Hiei to lower his blade from the young girl's neck. Not that he could've expected differently. This girl had been following him around whenever he was patrolling the Human World. At first, Hiei let it slide and chalked it up to the curiosity of an idiot human, or perhaps even coincidence. But over time, he began to sense her more and more—and he was growing wary of her presence tailing him. Suppressing his disdain and anger was both physically and psychologically exhausting so it was only a matter of time before he finally confronted her with a blade to her throat.

The idiot had followed him into a dead end alley and here they were—Hiei brimming with irritation and anger.

"I don't know who the hell you are," he said, seething poison through his teeth, "but if you continue to follow me, I'll slit your throat into ribbons."

The girl sitting on the ground must've been around Keiko's age, considering the similarities in their school uniforms. It didn't take a genius to understand that she was probably her classmate. But unlike Keiko, she had a head of stunning red hair running far past her waist. She resembled Kurama in that aspect, but without his striking green eyes to match. She had some spiritual sense like Kuwabara—that much, Hiei could tell—but she must've also inherited Kuwabara's stupidity, since she was blindly following him. It was a shame he couldn't gauge how fine-tuned her spiritual awareness was yet. That probably could've told him much more than the dumb look on her face.

If she knew Hiei was an apparition—if she knew the propensity of his power; in some way, she must've had some control of her spiritual awareness.

But if she were brave enough to follow him through the city alone, then she must've been pretty stupid.

"My name is Suren—and for your information, I wasn't _following_ you," she told him defiantly, "I just happened to be heading in the same direction."

Hiei narrowed his gaze, eyes intent on the idiot still sitting on the floor, "Don't test me. You've been following me for weeks."

"That's awfully presumptuous _and_ conceited of you to think," she retorted without missing a beat, "but whatever helps you sleep at night."

He sneered in return, "Why don't you watch your mouth before I slit your lips right off your face?"

At this, she bit down on her lower lip, not without mumbling something like: "I was just—same direction—jerk—idiot—asshole."

"Foul-mouthed, are we?" Hiei snapped, "If you truly were heading in the same direction, where were you exactly so intent on going?"

Suren paused and gulped a thick wad of spit stuck in her throat, smiling nervously and scratching the back of her neck like she had an unrelenting itch, "Uh…the…bathroom."

She hadn't thought that far, obviously.

A sweat drop slipped down the back of Hiei's head. For all the patience that he was losing, there was something so stupid about this girl that he couldn't help but roll his eyes at her inability to even lie to his face. Being earnest was probably her weakness because it became clear to him that there was no way for her to think quickly on her feet unless she completely shut down and blurted out something completely irrational.

So with that, he turned to leave—chalking this entire situation up to a stupid, curious, _idiot_ human with some spiritual awareness who didn't know her place.

"But wait!" Suren called after him, pushing herself up off the ground.

However, Hiei wasn't one to obey commands on a whim, so he vanished instantaneously while she stared at the space where he was standing only a few seconds ago. She leapt forward, trying to figure out if there were some imaginary portal he had stepped through. She stomped on the ground gently in a pattern of threes and pondered how he was able to pull something like that off right in front of her eyes. It must've been a spiritual thing, she surmised, turning her back to the wall of the alleyway, checking to see if he was hiding in the open space outside somewhere.

From the shadows emerged a scaly blue reptile with a giant horn on the top of his head, and a long tale in place of legs. Suren could feel the flow of his energy and whipped around to see him with a big grin on his face, saliva pouring in pints from the corners of his open lips. His eyes flared a dull, ugly amber and he edged closer while Suren opened her mouth to release a piercing scream.

The scream barely sailed out of her mouth before the scaled demon clasped his hand over his mouth, slithering his tale around her left leg.

"Oh, so now you like to hide in the shadow of an apparition?" He hissed into her ear, his tongue flicking out, "My love—you can run, but did you really think you could get so far away—"

Suren opened her mouth and bit down hard on his hand while the scaled demon opened his mouth to let out a piercing shriek.

She stumbled over his long tale, scraping her knees on the concrete, forcing herself up and spitting out a quick, "Don't—freaking—touch me!" She took off running straight out of the alleyway into an open space—

—only to run straight into the scaled blue demon again, who reanimated right in front of her in a blink of an eye.

Suren stared up into his dead amber eyes; he stared back and hissed, tongue flicking out.

Then, she took a deep breath, and sent a giant wad of spit into the demon's face.

The shock managed to throw him off for only a moment while she made a run for the park. When she looked over her shoulder, she realized he was gone. His disappearance made her heart race. From what she could surmise at this point, this scaled demon had an innate ability to disappear and manifest somewhere else instantaneously. Suren understood her only chance of survival would be to rely on a pattern of unpredictability. If the blue demon relied on his sense of understanding her movement, then she would have to throw him off.

With this little bit of knowledge, she veered completely away from the entrance of the park, and headed down the street where all the lights were. Looking over her shoulder, she could see the blue-scaled demon reanimate by the fountainhead at the center of the park. Suren smirked and continued running forward.

But before she could rethink a different strategy, she ran into a hard body and fell right onto the ground.

The scaled demon had reappeared and was already one proverbial step ahead of her. He raised his fist over her head with a small smirk, while he wrapped his long tail around her body. Suren felt chest contract, losing the last bit of breath inside her lungs. With his free hand above her head, she clamped her eyes shut and awaited her imminent demise.

Next thing she knew, a waterfall of blood showered over her shoulder—not her own blood. She opened her eyes and looked up to see Hiei, holding the decapitated head of the demon by the horn. With that, the tale of the demon ceased holding her and dispersed into black dust, along with the blood that had spilled everywhere. The head disappeared with a pop and followed the black dust soon after that.

"I heard you scream," Hiei stated as-a-matter-of-factly.

Suren had a contemplative look on her face, as if she were trying to think of what to say, "That wasn't me…that was—uh—_him_," she gestured to the remains of the black dust still floating around in the air—what was left of the demon. It was true. She hadn't even gotten her scream out before he clamped his hand over her mouth.

From where she sat on the ground, her stomach churned. It wasn't even an ungodly sight. There was almost nothing left of the demon. It was just seeing his decapitated head in another person's hand—that made her want to vomit on the spot. Had it not been for her already empty stomach, she probably would've tried to find the nearest bush to spill her insides out. So she looked away from Hiei, with the image of the decapitated head burning inside her mind.

"You should've mentioned that you were trying to avoid the demons following you," Hiei stated nonchalantly, "there's no reason to be prideful about something so inconsequential. It'll only get you killed in the end."

"Inconsequential?" Suren was completely appalled by his choice in words, "My _life_ is not something just inconsequential."

Hiei grunted in slight irritation, "Coming from the girl still sitting on the floor? Typical of a pathetic human to overvalue the worth of their own life."

She knitted her brows, but she was coming up empty with what to say in return.

"Oh? You're being quiet now?" Hiei resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"I wasn't following you and—" Suren managed to muster out; but she stopped midway and hung her head low, shutting her eyes tightly for what she was about to admit to him, "—the monsters…they stopped following me the closer I was to you."

"As they should," said Hiei with a smirk, "were you so wise to believe I wouldn't do the same to you?"

Truth was, Suren could gauge how powerful Hiei was. Even with the demons flocking throughout the city, his energy was like a giant torch in the wind. Even if he had ill intentions, she knew he wouldn't benefit in any way from killing her. Suren's small spiritual awareness was a light in the night for all sorts of demons—or monsters, as she referred to them. They wanted to ingest her to become more powerful. Naturally, her intuition pointed to Hiei's ignorance of her. It was a sign. He didn't _care_ for her, despite his power. His indifference to her existence was an important indicator of his apparent apathy for humankind.

So she followed him—and she followed him closely so that his power would lure away the weaker demons following _her_.

Their relationship was comparable to the rapport between a remora and a shark. But in this case, Hiei wasn't getting much from the symbiosis. But Suren didn't want to fuel his already apparent ego but admitting her dependence on him, so she kept this little bit to herself.

"Dumb luck," she suggested, "I guess I was just lucky thinking you wouldn't kill me."

"How uncharacteristic of you," Hiei stated, "you know what I hate more than idiots? _Liars_."

Suren's lower lip trembled but she wasn't above thinking to herself '_then you must hate yourself the most because you're an idiot and a liar_. _Zing_, _bitch_.'

He narrowed his eyes, "I can read your mind."

A sweat drop rolled down the back of her neck. Of course he could read her mind. With her streak of bad luck, this would happen to her.

But despite it all, Suren wasn't exactly afraid of him. From what she could tell, he didn't harbor any true, definitive animosity towards her. He seemed like the kind of monster she could bounce insults off and he wouldn't think too much of it because of the ego he had going strong. Sure he would throw an insult back here and there but Suren figured that at this point he could've done much worse—like kill her or threaten her with his katana to her throat again. But he didn't. Instead, he decided to save her on a whim and she chalked this up to good faith.

She was right. He was indifferent to her existence—there were apparently monsters roaming that didn't care for humans.

"I'm sorry for thinking those things," she said with a bit of hesitation; although he insulted her, he wasn't wrong in thinking she was a liar. So she decided to put down her pride for the time being and tell him, "you're not a liar…or an asshole…or a bitch."

"Grateful now, are we?" Hiei sneered, "Good. Because this won't be happening in the near future. Why don't you learn to tread more carefully?"

Before he could vanish again, Suren grabbed onto the bottom of his cloak and Hiei whipped around. She smiled sheepishly, "I—um. Thank you," and, she said a little more desperately, "I know I can be hard to handle sometimes, but just know that I'm thankful that you were here."

"You're not a damsel, so don't masquerade as one," Hiei told her sternly, "I saw you bite that apparition's hand—and I saw you spit in his face. Don't say thank you just because you feel it being your obligation as a _human_."

"Generally—when someone saves your life, you're supposed to say thank you," Suren stated, "but I guess you're not that kind of…monster."

"_Monster_," Hiei smirked, "is that what you think of me?"

"I mean, I'm not sure what the protocol is with this stuff—this just started happening to me a couple months ago so…I'm not really caught up with the lingo," she admitted halfheartedly.

"That's fine. Refer to me as whatever you think—be it a monster. I couldn't care less," he replied with a hint of indifference; but realization dawned on his face and he looked at Suren, "you said this started happening to you months ago?"

She nodded, "Um…yes. Why—is there something—"

Most were born with spiritual awareness. The only other way to obtain this awareness was to die and be reborn as some lackey of Koenma's (ie: Urameshi). Seeing as Suren seemed alive and well, completely unaware of the Demon World, or the Spirit World, there seemed to only be one definitive explanation.

"Who did you kill?" Hiei unsheathed his katana and held it to her throat, "Whose spiritual power did you absorb?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

A Cause for Apathy

* * *

"I…_what_?"

"Don't play dumb," said Hiei with a sneer, "your spiritual awareness. You weren't born with it. You murdered someone."

"How dare you—I didn't kill _anyone_," Suren snapped back with her eyes narrowed, "that's a ridiculous accusation."

Why he didn't think of this idea in the first place, Hiei couldn't be too sure. Rather than waste his time questioning the stubborn, lying _idiot_ in front of him, he could've easily unmasked the Jagan and find out what exactly he wanted to know. Perhaps, with an average human, he wouldn't even have to use the eye; but since she was so adamant, there was no doubt that there was something she was burying and hiding deep inside herself. Hiei would have to find it. So without another moment's hesitation, he reached out and grabbed her wrist roughly while she struggled, attempting to pull back against his grip. But Hiei had the iron hand so it didn't take long for her to submit.

"What the hell are you doing?" She snapped.

He pulled the white band layered over his forehead and Suren stared deeply into the violet glaze of the Jagan eye, completely fascinated. Something like _whoa_ was the only thing she could manage to utter from her mouth before Hiei decided to take the leap into her mind.

Her head was shadowed in a blur of blues and purples. Hiei sailed past the meaningless, stupid things—Suren's conversations with her school friends with a quick image of Keiko passing by in the hallway with a grimace, the boys in her middle school throwing paper balls at the back of her head. From what Hiei could surmise from the voices and images, she was teased a lot at school. But what he could also tell, she was somewhat of a teacher's pet. She stayed after school and asked them some stupid questions, most of which she already knew the answers to. She was acutely aware of how to get the grades.

She may not have been the brightest student, or the fastest learner, but she knew the right ways to kiss ass to get what she wanted.

And then—there was a baby. Hiei might've missed it had it not been for the high-pitched shriek that brought his attention away from the fleeting conversations at her school.

The human infant couldn't have been more than two years old. But from the size of its head, it wasn't a normal child. A slightly deformed looking child—at two years old, the infant was still wearing a diaper. _Slow_. From what little bit Hiei knew about human children, their heads shouldn't have been twice the size of their bodies.

It had down syndrome, or some kind of human _illness_, Hiei surmised. But from what he could feel from this child, it had an acute spiritual awareness that Suren didn't have.

Then there was a woman. She was Suren's mother, from what Hiei could hear. There were things they were saying—heated voices and rising tempers. But there was a rift in the memory and he could only watch as that same human infant fell outside the three-story rise of their apartment.

Following after the infant was Suren, reaching her arms out, trying desperately to grab him.

She hit the ground and held the baby in her arms. Hiei could feel the desperation coursing through her veins. He could feel the pump of her human heart, the shattering of her ribcage, the fragility of her human soul—things he could never quite understand.

Suren's mother tried to drop her own child out the window, and in an attempt to save her little brother, Suren had inadvertently crushed him with her body.

And so, she inherited on her own brother's spiritual sense.

Hiei released her, but she stood still and stared at him, eyes wide and tired. He half-expected her to collapse to her knees because while he was reliving her memories, she was reliving them too. She could feel every beat of the memory, including the part where her body hit the ground—she could feel every rib crack under the pressure. There was only so much pain a human body could withstand before it fell apart.

But still, she stood up straight.

"_Asshole_," she managed to utter out, her voice barely a whisper. Hiei noticed her glassy eyes; she was on the verge of tears.

Before she could say anything else, she fainted.

* * *

"Don't. Ask."

"That's unfair," said Kurama with a faint smile, "you're essentially asking me to house a stranger—and yet, I know almost nothing about her."

"She's harmless," Hiei replied, "the only thing that might pose a problem is her big mouth."

There was a slight pause while the fox glanced over the girl collapsed over his twin-sized bed. From what he could surmise, she had some kind of spiritual awareness. Hiei wouldn't have carelessly dropped her off at his residence if he knew she posed some kind of danger. Besides, she was frail and she looked like she hadn't seen a single day of fighting. It was almost comical that the fire apparition looked so irritated by a "meager little human."

It piqued Kurama's interest to some extent. But he wasn't about to probe Hiei for an answer; after all, he knew better than anyone that if the situation were reversed, Hiei wouldn't even hesitate to do him a favor like this.

"Have you erased her memories?" Kurama asked.

Another slight pause. Hiei looked like he was contemplating something.

"No," the fire apparition averted his gaze from the girl sleeping on Kurama's bed to the moon shining through the window of his bedroom, "she's Kuwabara's kind—she has some kind of spiritual awareness. The demons have been flocking her. She's learned to keep them away by following my path. _Idiot_."

Kurama's thoughts lingered on _Maya_—a young girl who had a crush on him when they were in middle school. She, too, had some spiritual awareness. But she'd seen things that would stay with her—things that would haunt her. Things that could eat her up inside and change the way she lived forever. Kurama asked Hiei to eradicate her memories to save her from that fate. Maya's spiritual awareness disappeared soon afterwards.

"She wasn't afraid of you?" Kurama asked, "She wasn't afraid of the demons?"

Hiei crossed his arms over his chest, "She was afraid," and—a slight pause, "only of the demons."

"Perhaps she's under the impression that you'd be more reasonable—you appear far more human, after all," Kurama tried to rationalize her thoughts. If she was following Hiei to protect herself from the demons following her, she must've known that he was stronger than them, "but that doesn't explain why you haven't eradicated her memories."

Hiei closed his eyes, "It won't work."

"What do you mean?" The fox demon arched a brow in mild confusion.

"Her spiritual awareness is deeply ingrained. If I were to eradicate her memories, her spiritual awareness would remain," Hiei stated, "she wouldn't last more than two days."


End file.
